The City Council Education Committee on March 19 adopted a resolution calling on the state Legislature to reject Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s receivership approach for fixing struggling city schools via a state takeover.

UFT Vice President Karen Alford, who testified for the union as the Council debated the resolution, said a better approach is already underway at the 94 schools in the city’s School Renewal Program, a $150 million plan that uses intensive academic supports and a community schools model of wraparound services.

“The governor’s plan is essentially to strip away local control and turn a school over either to an outside entity of his choosing or to the state itself,” she told the committee. Cuomo, she added, has underfunded public schools and adopted the Bloomberg administration’s failed corporate approach to education reform.

“The history of state takeovers of schools is a history of failure,” Alford said. “The transformative work underway at Renewal Schools stands in stark contrast to that approach.”

She cited Boys and Girls HS, one of the 94 schools, where the UFT and the Department of Education are partners in a holistic approach, bringing in more guidance counselors and intervention services, adding instructional time, offering more arts and athletics, and emphasizing professional development and mentoring.

Zakiyah Ansari, the advocacy director for the Alliance for Quality Education, told the Council that Cuomo’s receivership strategy amounts to privatization. “Instead, he should let Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Fariña implement their community schools and renewal vision,” she said.

The Council Committee voted unanimously in favor of the resolution at the end of the hearing.

Read Alford’s full testimony.